An automatic call distributor (ACD) is used in a telephone communication system to distribute incoming calls among a plurality of agents based upon agent workload. In most prior art systems, the ACD was directly connected to the system controller and hence had to be co-located or located nearby. Consequently, the ACD utilized valuable system controller processing time and memory. Moreover, restricting an ACD location as proximate to the system controller often presented problems for certain user applications. In systems which were not designed to provide an ACD capability, retrofitting a system controller to accommodate an ACD is difficult.